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Britain could deny aid spending to countries refusing to take back foreign prisoners from UK jails, ministers have suggested.

James Wharton, an international development minister, suggested on Wednesday that aid could be stopped if countries continue to refuse to take back prisoners from UK jails.

Speaking in the Commons, Mr Wharton, who is deputy to Priti Patel, the Development Secretary, said the Government “wants to ensure that every penny we spend is spent wisely”.

Dfid

He supported the “important” comments previously made by Dominic Raab, a former minister who had called for money to be diverted away from countries “refusing point-blank to accept foreign national offenders deported from the UK”.

Countries including Pakistan and Jamaica have been criticised for refusing to take back offenders from British jails.

Meanwhile, there was confusion over foreign aid spending after Ms Patel suggested that Britain could continue giving taxpayers’ money to fund controversial European Union aid programmes even after Brexit.

President Robert MugabeCredit:
Xu Lingui/REX

Ms Patel said that the UK could keep sending hundreds of millions of pounds to the European Development Fund (EDF), which has in the past given spent money on Trapeze lessons in Africa and a study of coconuts.

Ms Patel also said she no longer wants to abolish the Development Department, something she said she wanted to do before being made a Cabinet minister by Theresa May.

And she said that she is now “completely” committed to spending 0.7 per cent of Britain’s GDP on aid spending seven weeks after joining her new department.

The EDF was last year found to have given more than £400million a year of British money on projects including sending officials to the Caribbean to discuss renewable energy and promoting Zimbabwean tyrant Robert Mugabe.

However, in the same session of the Commons development committee, Ms Patel insisted that Brexit will allow the Government to “control” development spending.

Whitehall sources later suggested that EU aid spending programmes such as the EDF will be looked at as part of Ms Patel’s crackdown on foreign aid waste.

A demonstrator draped in an EU flag sits on the floor during a protest against the outcome of the UK's June 23 referendum Credit:
JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP

Stephen Twigg, the chairman of the International Development Committee, asked Ms Patel: “Is it possible once Brexit has happened that we could still voluntarily take part in European programmes? I’m thinking particularly of the European Development Fund”.

Ms Patel said: “Look, this is a case of the art of the possible, quite frankly. I don’t view this as a sort of binary process immediately. We have to look at how we leverage skills and experience across EU member states, obviously.

“But also in terms of how we can still contribute. We are a global player and just because we are withdrawing from EU institutions does not mean we cease to be a global player in the international development sphere.

“Our footprint is enormous. The experience we have is so significant.”

However, she later said: “Outside of the EU, outside of our membership of the EU when we get there, of course we will have control over that money that currently goes to the EU.

"Obviously that will give my department and the Government a greater say in terms of how that money is used, how it is leveraged, in terms of meeting our development aims, priorities and objectives.

"I'm not giving any commitments right now because we are just at the start of this process and I think it's important to recognise that there is a process, there is ongoing dialogue, there will be negotiations.

"But certainly from the perspective that I come from, that is money that we will get back, obviously as part of leaving the European Union, and that is money that we should rightly spend for our own development objectives and to meet the priorities that the Government are committed to."